Self-Talk Matters In Business

The reason why self-talk is so insidious is because it changes how we behave. Self-talk determines how we approach life: business, relationships, opportunities. Everything. It’s an important behavior to address and reprogram.

What is self-talk?

Self-talk is our internal programming. It is the voice in our head. It’s the rule of thumb by which we judge ourselves and sometimes others.

Well, the thing is, the reason why negative self-talk is so insidious — insidious, horrible, evil, damaging — is because it changes how we behave. It changes the things that we choose in our lives. Do we make friends easily or do we figure they’re going to use us anyway? Do we try for better jobs?

“Cheerful and supportive or negative and self-defeating, this internal chatter is referred to as self-talk. This inner voice combines conscious thoughts with unconscious beliefs and biases. It’s an effective way for the brain to interpret and process daily experiences.” Psychology Today

Why does self-talk matter?

The short answer is that it affects our business decisions. It affects our website copy. It affects our collections, pricing, billing. It affects our boundaries and we allow scope creep.

I’ve been rewriting bios, about pages, and home pages for many of my WordPress freelancer and agency peers. The amount of apologetic and deprecating copy is alarming.

If self-talk were a hate crime, we’d be guilty in WordPress. Read that again.

If self-talk were a hate crime, we'd be guilty in WordPress. Click To Tweet

Watch the video from Las Vegas.

Do we make self-deprecating jokes?

I used to make fun of my weight singing “Here she comes, North America.” It’s terrible. We put ourselves down before anyone else has the opportunity.

Do we try to have better jobs and better clients or do we figure that we’re not good enough?

Think about this. When is the last time you went after a client? List the clients and jobs you didn’t go after. Why didn’t you?

Do we self-isolate?

Do we decide nobody wants us to be around? Nobody cares if I go to the pool party tonight. Nobody will know if I’m not there because it’s just easier than going there and having someone say something mean to your or, you know, you’re not going to get accepted.

Are we brave in our relationships?

And when I mean “brave,” I mean, are you willing to trust somebody? Are you willing to go down a little bit of credit in the trust bank? You know, even people who goes through bankruptcy get a secured credit card. You start over, you know. You can’t have any kind of relationship at any level to andy degree without trust and somebody has to be the one who you said. And that is terrifying.

Are we vulnerable to somebody?

Not everybody. You don’t want to be like me and talk about how ridiculous is to date in 2019 on Twitter. But somebody — you should trust somebody with your soul. It can be somebody you pay like a therapist, but you should trust somebody.

Change Your Self Talk

So you’ve got to make breaking changes. You know? This is super important. Sometimes it means pausing or completely disconnecting your relationship you have with somebody who is “toxic” I think is the word du jour.

So we have to find the bugs; they’re not features. So find somebody that you trust to talk about what’s going on. with you and start to recognize the patterns and your word choice.

Practice self-awareness. Journal, I’m not a journaling person; it doesn’t work for me. It makes me feel even stupider so that’s fine. But you know these things or these things are important, right?

Self Talk Challenge

So what I would like you to do for a few minutes is to think of some of the things that you are. Write them down. It matters. Hide it. Look at it later.

“Last week was one of THOSE weeks for me. All sorts of horrible website snafus and an email migration from Hell. Yesterday I was feeling kind of bummed out and then I saw “the note” I wrote to myself during your WCLV presentation. 😍Lots of great “I am… ” which is JUST what I needed to suck it up and let the bad crap go. So, thanks for doing that exercise with the group. Just wanted to let you know that it mattered to me.” Attendee

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4 Comments

  1. linda on September 19, 2019 at 2:32 pm

    Excellent!!

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  2. Bridget Willard on September 19, 2019 at 2:43 pm

    Thank you!



  3. Gillian Whitney on September 19, 2019 at 4:24 pm

    Bridget’s LV WordCamp presentation was incredibly honest and helpful. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Which is why it’s helpful to know that other people may also be struggling with negative self talk issues. Just like we need a good set of tools to build a great website, rephrasing our “self talk” is an excellent way to build a better us.



  4. Bridget Willard on September 19, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    I love that “build a better us.” Thank you!